A bit more dirt - seems the bill for Sellafield just went by £5 Billion.

Quote:

A five-year extension to the Sellafield nuclear decommissioning contract worth £5bn was handed to a private consortium even though its performance had been fiercely criticised by accountants.

KPMG, working for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, accused the clean-up group of overspending, failure to reach operational targets and weak leadership at the atomic complex in Cumbria, according to documents seen by the Guardian.

Margaret Hodge, who chairs the parliament's public accounts committee, said that in the light of the critical review it was "inexplicable" that the NDA was prepared to reward the Nuclear Management Partners (NMP) consortium for spending cash "like confetti".

She also complained the critical KPMG report was not shown to her committee or the National Audit Office until the last minute. It had only been sent to the spending watchdogs via a member of the public who conducted a freedom of information request. "But having looked at the report it is inexplicable that the NDA would continue with this consortium after such a hugely critical assessment," she added.

The NMP decommissioning consortium comprises Areva, the French engineering firm that is also working on the new Hinkley Point power station, in Somerset, which also includes URS of the US and Amec of Britain.

KPMG says it went through 28 out of 154 "bid commitments" at Sellafield and found 30% were deemed fully achieved and 4% partially achieved. KPMG added: "There is still considerable uncertainty in schedules and costs of the projects that account for 26% of annual spending" while the site manager "does not bear risks for delays and cost increases".

There are a couple of points I think are relevant to the discussion about nuclear power.

Firstly, nuclear is/has been expensive. Therefore electricity has been, over the last few decades, more expensive, on average, than it would have been had nuclear never been used. Secondly, nuclear is low carbon. No matter hard folk try and twist the figures, I'm confident nuclear is significantly lower carbon than gas, and in the same ball park as wind.

Combine these points and we have a historic with nuclear world of marginally more expensive (therefore lower consumption), marginally lower carbon electricity. Had we not used nuclear, electricity would have been both cheaper and higher carbon.

I'm of the opinion that civil nuclear power has pushed back the CO2 concentration trajectory by several years.

One could argue that without nuclear power, we might have recognised and reacted more swiftly to the CO2 problem - but without evidence that's wishful thinking IMO._________________PowerSwitch on Facebook | The Oil Drum | Twitter | Blog

I don't think it's fair to comment on the Carbon intensity of nuclear power 'til we know for sure exactly how decommissioning and waste disposal are going to be done. For all we know, these might cause so much Carbon as to tip up the entire set of figures.

I see this as special pleading. Yeah, sure, there might end up being a high ongoing carbon cost... but I'm happy with the idea that carbon costs of future decommission and waste management won't elevate nuclear's CO2/kWh anywhere close to simply burning fossil fuels._________________PowerSwitch on Facebook | The Oil Drum | Twitter | Blog

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